The offices that come with hotel-style services

Space as a service is agnostic to sectors. You see it in retail, in hospitality and now in offices, says Ryan Simonetti, chief executive and co-founder, Convene. Convene, which has been up and running for nine years, offers workplace as a service and partners with the largest global landlords – including Brookfield and Blackstone – to help them operate their office buildings more like a full-service hotel. It is about lifestyle as well as workspace, so we build in events space, meeting space, co-working facilities and hotel-level amenities when it comes to the sorts of food and drink that are on offer. The future of the office is not all about co-working, but rather making the real estate a consumer experience. Convene is hospitality combined with the traditional office building, but it offers something that moves away from the tenant to focus on the individual, because these are the people who can now choose how, when and where they work. Co-working is a piece of that, but it’s the headline. The trend line is what is offered across the board from a design and tech perspective. This includes the snacks – and we have a strong snack game here – and the offers and events spaces. The millennial generation, which now dominates the workforce and will make up 70% of it by 2025 or 2030, values purpose above all else. I would argue that most of us go into offices that don’t inspire us every day. So to be able to design a physical space where there is a human-to-human experience rooted in hospitality creates soul. And I think we are all craving that. Office spaces have to be designed empathetically. They have to make people feel good. Because how much time do we spend in offices? It’s a huge chunk of our lives. Work/life balance has been replaced by work/life integration as we are all looking to make the best use of our time. The same trends are playing out globally but different regions are leading on different things. From a space-as-a-service perspective, London is much more advanced than New York or Asia, but I think North America will lead on the tech and certain parts of Europe will lead on design. In the future we need to be in Asia. London is near and dear to our hearts, which is why we announced in February that we have instructed agents to find our first space in the UK capital. From a space perspective, we want to find the landlords committed to creating an experience for the end-user that is different and deeply empathetic. It is less about location and more about partner. Click here to read all of EG’s global content.